Digitize Slides with Projector and Camera
'My own slide-scanner process' This setup uses a semi-automatic slide projector and a compact camera aligned on their optical axis to digitize old diapositive slides very efficiently in larger quantities. The camera takes macro shots at the front of a slide, while it is illuminated from behind. Both camera and projector are driven by a micro-controller, which generates pulses for 'next slide', 'autofocus', 'shoot' with accurate timing. Total cycle time per slide is less than 4 seconds, and I was able to capture 4000 slides in two days. Visit some samles, to review the achieved quality. Hardware * Old 'Liesegang A33 autofocus' diapositive slide projector : Modifications: ** condensor lens removed ** White Teflon diffusor added ** front optics removed, case opened and autofocus components removed so that I can get as close to the slide as possible ** Remote control modded to feature and external trigger connector 2.5mm coax for the 'next slide' button. * A diffusor to dim the projectors lamp : I have a piece of white teflon 2mm thick, cut to 55mm x 55mm. Teflon does not melt even after longer exposure to the projectors lamp. * optics from an old Sony HI8 video camera. : I used only the first pair of the lens system. Any other optics would do, as long as the following requirements are met: ** large diameter lenses. I have a free diameter of ca. 33mm. That is about the minimum needed to not cut the corners of the slides. ** good quality, low distortion in the corners, ** focal length ca 40mm. * 60mm diameter heat shrink tube. This is a very crude way to construct tubing for experimental lens systems, But worked so well, I just kept it. * A piece of aluminum to manufacture the camera mount. * tools and a 3/8" tripod screw. * slides : a lot of them. The procedure below works well, with a few thousand slides. * a few empty magazins for swapping slides in and out from their storage boxes. * pressurized air; a bottle or a compressor, to clean off dust from the slides. * Canon Powershot SX210 IS * ATtiny2313 board, with ** relais, 2.5mm coax cable ** USB out ** 5V power supply ** development board to program the attiny * a fat harddisk to store it all. * a dvd writer to save the output Software * capture automation ** crosstoolchain:avr from opensuse build service for the attiny controller ** URL: svn+ssh://jw@innerweb.suse.de/suse/jw/repo.svn/src/avr/dia_capture ** camera mod: CHDK "Firmware" for remote trigger. chdk.wikia.com ** text editor and an ascii file. for recording time stamps and namesof slide series. * postprocessing ** digikam (linux) ** imagination 2.1.1 (a dvd slideshow software) ** sikuli (a GUI automation software) ** devede (A DVD authoring software) Procedure # Charge the battery of your camera. : Once the SX210 is mounted on the base plate, it can no longer be opened to exchange the battery. Unmounting the camera requires re-adjusting the camera afterwards. # set the time/date of the camera to be accurate within a few seconds # Firmware ## Insert SD-Card with CHDK ## Switch on with > -> MENU, -> UP -> Firm update ## Zoom -> to open lenses, ## Pull Zoom to the position where display changes from '20cm - oo' to '30cm - oo' ## Func Set ## WB Neon ## ISO 100 ## Size L, mode fine ## Exp Comp -2/3 ## Av Mode ## Aperture 8 # Mount on tripod, connect USB Controller cable # Adjust optical axis; No dark corners! # shoot all slides in landscape mode. # before inserting a magazin, visually inspect the slides, mark their top with a red felt pen # turn portraits into landscape mode. turn top towards projector # after shooting turn those with a black side back into portrait format # unscrew from tripod # pull SD-Card # Mount a harddisk, insert the sd-card from the camera /dev/sdb1 on /media/Elements type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions) /dev/mmcblk0p1 on /media/disk-1 type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uid=1000,utf8,shortname=mixed,flush) rsync -va /media/disk-1/* /media/Elements/dia/ mv /media/Elements/dia/DCIM/102{_,b}__01 # so that it does not mix with other 102 series rm -rf /media/disk-1/DCIM/102___01 ImageMagick does that, but recompresses the jpeg data anew. rotate 180 deg, mirror image convert -flip -verbose -quality 95 input.jpg output.jpg find 102___01 -print -exec convert -flip -quality 95 {} flip{} \; rotate 180 deg, normal image find 104a__01 -print -exec convert -rotate 180 -quality 95 {} rot{} \; rename them to unique names, so that they can go into one directory find rot103a__01 | perl -ne 'chomp; $n = "$1/IMG_$2$3" if $_ =~ m{^(.*(\d\d\d.).*)/IMG(.*)}; rename $_, $n' mv 104b__01/IMG_1397.JPG 104b__01/IMG_104b_1397.JPG copy them all into one directory, the first series is mostly mirror images, the latter three are normal. mkdir horizontal time cp -a DCIM/flip102b__01/* all time cp -a DCIM/rot103a__01/* all time cp -a DCIM/rot104a__01/* all time cp -a DCIM/rot104b__01/* all # Rotate Portraits into portrait mode: digikam -> collection -> add the directory 'all' as a 'base album root' Walk through the thumbnails with cursor keys, use CTRL-SHIFT-LEFT or CTRL-SHIFT-RIGHT to rotate. You can highlight multiple images with CTRL-SPACE and holding CTRL while moving. Mirror horizontally with CTRL-*, make Upside-Down with CTRL-/ Manipulation is doen with KIPI-Plugins JPEGLossless, good! Much better than ImageMagick. Carefull when reassigning Shortcut-Keys: 'Flipped' just manipulates the EXIF header, but 'Flip' does the real thing! In case this happened, find any images, where Exif-Orientation is not normal: find all | xargs exiftool -Orientation | grep -v 'Horizontal (normal)' | grep -B 1 Orientation (Do not use gweniew, because it shows you builtin thumbnails that are no longer correct after imagemagic convert. BUGALERT in convert?) for the distorted markup. I had a hard time getting the bullet lists readable at all. Category:Photography Category:Electronics Category:Atmel AVR Category:Optics